livebooks blog

Interested in learning about sports photography from one of Sports Illustrated’s top photographers? Join Peter Read Miller April 13-19 in Denver, Colorado, and get access to a variety of action packed sports from mountain biking and college football, to high school basketball, and amateur boxing during this weeklong workshop.

In addition to capturing the action on the field, a portion of the workshop will be spent on learning how to shape the light in both studio and on-location, arena lighting with strobes, and the set-up and use of remote cameras.

For maximum learning potential, participants of this workshop have the opportunity for their work to be personally reviewed and critiqued by Peter each day at one of Denver’s top commercial photography studios.

What you will learn:

• Techniques to capture action
• How to use lighting and different angles for shooting various sports
• The power of cropping & editing images to make them magazine cover-worthy
• How to choose the best lenses for sports photography

What’s Included:

• Canon and Dynalite gear loans
• 6 days of instruction
• Access to sporting events
• Location & model fees
• One on one portfolio review with Peter

Workshop fee: $1,995

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to gain a better understanding of how to turn good images into outstanding ones!

Learn more: www.peterreadmiller.com

Hopefully by now you all know about the importance of social media for the success of your business. At this stage in the social game, Facebook and Twitter should be old hat. But what about some of the newer platforms that are quickly becoming more popular – even surpassing – some of the old favorites? Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr are the networks to watch in 2015 – and the good news for all you creative professionals – all of these platforms are dominated by photo and video content.

Instagram – With 300 million monthly active users and Citigroup just raising the valuation of the network from $19 billion to $35 billion, Instagram has officially surpassed Twitter. With a number of recent updates to the app, such as looping videos, like its main competitor, Vine, does, Instagram has made some huge strides in overall user experience. Instagram also just released a whole slew of new photo editing tools – from creative tools, to brand new filter choices – making it the ideal space for creative professionals to share their photos. If you aren’t on Instagram already, this should be the first social network that you check out ASAP so you can connect with customers, showcase your work, and develop your brand. (Also, make sure to follow @liveBookswebsites!)

Pinterest – With another round of funding, Pinterest is rumored to now be valued at $11 billion with an 111% growth in active users in the past six months. Pinterest has also been making some pretty significant updates to its platform – a smarter search tool called Guided Search that allows a user to filter their searches by adding specific filters relevant to the original search term. Plus, much like Instagram’s Direct feature, Pinterest also recently released the ability for users to have private conversations about specific pins. Since up to 80% of all pins on Pinterest are repins – this is a huge opportunity for photographers to organically “pin” their own content with a high likelihood that it will be re-pinned by the Pinterest community. Everyone – from agency’s (for commercial/editorial work) to consumers (for portraits and weddings) are searching photos on Pinterest. This is a great platform to showcase your work and get noticed – and don’t forget to #hashtag!

Tumblr – While Tumblr has actually been around since 2007, because of some updates and a refreshed interface, its active users grew by 120% in the past six months. To put this all in perspective, Facebook’s active users grew by just 2% in the past six months.  And while Tumblr is mostly known as a microblogging platform, the reason to be on Tumblr is its highly engaged community. Posts are shared, reblogged, liked, and commented on with great frequency, and it has become known as the “Twitterized version of WordPress.”  While you can share and post pretty much any content you want, from text, photos, quotes, links, chat, audio, and video, unsurprisingly in this day and age, the most shared and liked content is photos. Since 83% of Tumblr posts are photos, and most users do not create their own content, adding your original photos to the content pool will set you apart in the Tumblr world. Check out Harrison Jacobs “7 Tumblr Tips for Photographers” for some really great info on how to best utilize this platform for your business.

I think we all know that social media is here for the long haul, and the good news is that it’s a great opportunity to show off your creativity and add meaningful content to the conversation. Take advantage of all of these free ways to get your brand out there – because it will be imperative for the future of your business.

We just got back from 3 days in Las Vegas for the WPPI conference, and we’re still catching up on sleep. The best way to describe WPPI is that it’s three days of education, conversation, and fun – and WPPI 2015 was certainly no different!

The liveBooks team had an absolute blast in Vegas. We approached our time there with a “work-hard, play-hard” mindset, and were thrilled to see some new and familiar faces (we scanned 632 people!) at the liveBooks Booth.  (Hopefully everyone got the orange bags before they ran out!)   As always, we enjoyed seeing our clients in person — as much of our interaction is done via phone or email — and showcasing the new features liveBooks has to offer. Plus, WPPI was a great opportunity for us to hang out with our co-workers that we might not see as often as we would like.

From bags, to stickers, to sunglasses, our orange swag seems to have been a huge hit! We gave out 400 totes, 350 sunglasses, 700 lens cloths, and 100 stickers! (It certainly didn’t hurt that our colors perfectly aligned with the World Series Champions, the San Francisco Giants, as was pointed out to us by many of you.)

Check out our Senior Support Specialist, Laura, and her mom showing off their liveBooks swag!

Finally, congratulations to Heather East for posting her photo of the liveBooks sticker and winning our WPPI social media contest! Thank you again for everyone that stopped by our booth and participated in our contest. We can’t wait to see you all next year!

@heathereastphoto

Looking for a hands-on workshop that will connect you with the roots of landscape photography? Join award-winning photographer Craig Varjabedian as he takes you to the California Coast, the place where landscape photography as we know it was born.

This is not just any workshop. You’ll explore and make photographs along the California Coast from Monterey to Big Sur, where Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Wynn Bullock, Morley Baer and many other important photographers made their homes, honed their craft, and created their most significant work.

In addition to making photographs, you will visit with the families of Edward Weston and Wynn Bullock to learn more about their photography. These are the artists and places that inspired Craig most when he was just starting out, and he will take you to where Morely Baer and other esteemed photographers took him.

For Craig, spending time with these artists at these beautiful locations was a turning point for him. It’s where photography began to make sense. The light came on. He hopes that by recreating some of the most significant experiences he had early on in his career, it will influence your work and improve your image-making abilities.

This workshop takes place October 4-9, 2015. For more information or to request an invitation to this one-of-a kind photography workshop visit http://eloquentlight.com/photographing-the-california-coast-workshop.html.

Craig’s bio:

Craig Varjabedian’s photographs of the American West illuminate his profound connection with the region and its people. His finely detailed images shine with an authenticity that reveals the inseparable ties between identity, place, and the act of perceiving. Visit Craig’s website to see more of his work and learn more about his workshops.